FOR STARTERS.

Ma Metra

January 01, 1995|By Jeff Lyon.

A few days ago a student walked into my journalism class 45 minutes late and handed me a piece of paper. "To Whom It May Concern," it said. "This is to advise that Metra trains were unavoidably delayed due to difficulties . . . We apologize for any inconvenience."

I was so taken with the idea of a commuter line playing mom that I rang Metra up to find out more about these "Train Delay Notices."

"We call them notes to the teacher," says Metra spokesperson Susan Kemp. "You give them to your employer so they don't think you slept late." The practice began two years ago, and the notices are given out whenever one of the 3,763 trains that Metra runs weekly is more than 10 minutes late-"about 3 percent of the time," Kemp says.

Wonder if the post office could stick the same kind of thing on late mail.